Major AIDS Organizations Launch Campaign To Expand National Retrovirus Conference

Washington, D.C., January 22 - Responding to the concerns of the HIV community, as
well as scientists, physicians, and other professionals engaged in AIDS
research, several major AIDS organizations, including AIDS Action Council, AIDS
Project Los Angeles, AIDS Research Alliance, Gay Men's Health Crisis, Linda
Grinberg Foundation, Project Inform, San Francisco AIDS Foundation, and
Treatment & Data Committee, among others, today announced a campaign to persuade
the organizers of the 4th Conference on Retroviruses and Opportunistic
Infections to radically rethink the design of the conference, and, in order to
accommodate the increased demand, move the meeting to a larger venue
in 1998.

The 4th Conference on Retroviruses and Opportunistic Infections (January
22-26, at the Sheraton Washington Hotel), is an independent meeting held in
collaboration with the Infectious Diseases Society of America, the National
Institutes of Health (NIH), and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention
(CDC). In the last three years, it has become de facto the single most
important annual AIDS research conference in the world.

Unfortunately, about 3,000 leading scientists and other qualified individuals
have been locked out of this year's conference, as have hundreds of HIV
community representatives, treatment advocates, and people with HIV, due
to the organizers' policy to severely restrict attendance to 2,100. According
to the latest information, over 5,000 applied to attend the conference, meaning
that just under 3,000 were unable to get in. Most of these are qualified AIDS
researchers and clinicians.

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Many independent AIDS experts and representatives from the organizations listed
above believe this short-sighted policy can only undermine the national AIDS
effort. Rapid access to all the latest scientific information is crucial so as
not to impede the progress of scientists working on a solution to the AIDS
crisis, nor limit the ability of clinical researchers to speed discoveries from
the laboratory via clinical trials into clinical practice.

The current attendance restrictions, with so many qualified individuals unable
to attend, are unprecedented in the history of medical conferences and have
created an uproar in the AIDS research community. "It is my understanding that
one of the original goals of the sponsors was to create a National AIDS
Conference," said R. Scott Hitt, M.D., Chair of the Presidential Advisory
Council on HIV and AIDS. "Now that they've succeeded, it behooves them to be
inclusive of all scientists and other qualified individuals engaged in AIDS
research. To plan otherwise divides the AIDS research community, discourages
younger AIDS researchers, and does a tremendous disservice to the nation and the
national AIDS effort."

"Things are changing so fast in the field of HIV/AIDS that it's nearly
impossible for clinicians, researchers and patient advocates to keep up," said
Dr. Roy Gulick, an AIDS expert at New York University who works in the
front lines at NYU/Bellevue Medical Center. "The Retrovirus meeting provides
cutting-edge information that is essential for continuing our fight against
HIV/AIDS. Without direct access to the latest advances, we all
suffer."

"Claims by the organizers that restrictions placed on the size of this
conference are necessary to keep the meeting "intimate" and "productive" hide a
larger truth," said Martin Delaney, founder of Project Inform. "One of the real
motives of the conference organizers is their own desire to keep control of the
meeting in the hands of a few, self-selected individuals whose views and
preferences dominate every aspect of the program. Opening the meeting will not
only make it more equitable, it will improve the quality and quantity of
scientific discourse."

"The present situation is absurd when even invited speakers and presenters are
denied access and cannot obtain advance registration," said Dr. Steven Miles, a
leading AIDS researcher and Professor of Medicine at UCLA. "Moreover, seeking
to engender an atmosphere in which publicly-funded research is only presented in
private forums sets a dangerous precedent. There needs to be free, widespread
public access to the information. To think that by restricting reporting by the
press and access to the information by the affected communities will somehow
enhance the nature of the meeting or the quality of the information to be
disseminated is ridiculous."

Even more disturbing, in light of the restrictive attendance policy, is the fact
that the conference is being held in collaboration with the NIH and CDC. In
fact, as the organizers acknowledge, the Retrovirus conference has become the
most important forum for government scientists at the CDC and the NIH, including
the National Cancer Institute, and the National Institute of Allergies and
Infectious Diseases (NIAID), to present the results of the nation's
multi-billion dollar AIDS research program to the greater AIDS research
community.

The involvement of the NIH and CDC, by association with these government
agencies, has enabled the conference to grow and become the most important
occasion of the year for other scientists working in universities and other
academic institutions who are also recipients of Federal AIDS research grants
to share the results of their work with other researchers, as well as with the
pharmaceutical industry, physicians, HIV treatment advocates, the media and the
public.

Having created a National AIDS conference that has become so vital to the
interests of so many scientists and other HIV experts, and in view of the
continuing national health crisis that is AIDS, the above AIDS organizations,
with the support of other organizations listed below, believe that the
organizers must recognize the increased demand and move the conference next year
to a much larger facility.

Recommendations

To avert the present difficulties, the above AIDS organizations have jointly
recommended prior to the conference that the organizers of the meeting take the
following steps:

Admit immediately as many extra scientists, HIV community
representatives, and other qualified individuals as possible into this
year's conference to maximum capacity of the conference site.

REQUEST REFUSED.

Provide a LIVE video feed into adjoining conference rooms or other
off-site facility to accommodate an additional 1,000 to 1,500 scientists,
physicians, HIV treatment advocates, and any other participants who wish to
attend.

REQUEST REFUSED.

Next year, move the conference into a larger facility that can readily
accommodate the 5,000 to 6,000 scientists and other experts engaged in
AIDS research who need to attend, while also providing for expanded
HIV community representation.

NO RESPONSE.

Adopt a resolution declaring that future conferences should be open
to all qualified AIDS researchers, including scientists and clinicians in the
pharmaceutical industry, as well as physicians in clinical practice, HIV
patient advocates, and other qualified experts in the HIV community.

NO RESPONSE.

The organizers have to date refused any discussion or accommodation to these
reasonable requests. Ignoring the lessons from last year's conference, the
organizers have rebuffed every attempt to open channels of communication and
establish a dialogue with interested parties in the AIDS research community.

"The organizers have known about the increased demand among scientists and
others who need to attend this conference for over a year," said Dr. R. Scott
Hitt. "They cannot again in 1998 continue to unfairly restrict access to the
meeting thereby limiting the flow of information to scientists, the HIV
community, and the nation. They must recognize this new reality and work with
scientists and others in the AIDS research community to open up the conference
by moving it next year to a larger facility."

Details of the Campaign

As the first step in their campaign announced today, the above AIDS
organizations announced that they will call upon the leaders of the NIH and CDC,
as well as members of Congress, to urgently review the collaboration of the NIH
and CDC in future Retrovirus conferences.

The above organizations also announced that they will urge the Secretary for
Health and Human Services, as well as legislators who serve on committees with
responsibility for NIH funding, to reaffirm and enforce government policy
guidelines that require the results of publicly-funded biomedical research to be
disseminated to the widest possible audience, and not limited to scientific
forums attended by a privileged few.

Finally, if recommendations made by the above organizations and scientists go
unheeded, the above organizations announced that they will call upon the NIH and
government leaders to support an initiative for a new National AIDS conference
in 1998 that would be more inclusive of scientists and all other individuals
engaged in AIDS research. According to reliable reports, the directors of NIAID
have recently directed a similar call to the organizers of the conference.

"Unfortunately, too few scientists have dared to speak up and take a stand on
this issue," said Dr. George Fareed, Director of Clinical Research for AIDS
Research Alliance. "Once a conference has become the premier annual scientific
meeting for AIDS researchers - in effect, the National AIDS Conference - it becomes
unconscionable to exclude qualified scientists from attending. To move AIDS
research forward, the organizers must open up the meeting to all qualified
applicants. There should be no privileged club or hierarchy among scientists."

Limiting participation in such an important event by any group of professionals
engaged in AIDS research, whether AIDS research scientists, clinical
researchers, physicians, representatives of the HIV community, or other
qualified individuals, is morally wrong and can only serve to prolong this
disease.

"People with HIV will win the right to attend this conference and bring the
vital information offered there back to our communities so that we remain
educated in all the latest research developments and active in all the processes
that will flow from this meeting and which will affect our lives," said Gary
Rose of AIDS Action Council. "In the fight against AIDS, knowledge is one of
our nation's most precious resources. The ability to share it should not be
rationed."

Other organizations supporting this initiative include: AIDS Treatment News,
San Francisco; Critical Path AIDS Project, Philadelphia; The National AIDS
Treatment Advocacy Project, New York; And The NYU/Bellevue AIDS Community
Advisory Board. A consensus statement and complete list of organizations and
individuls who support this initiative is available upon request.

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